


Codes

by SilentRaven97



Series: codes [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Friendship, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-28
Updated: 2016-05-30
Packaged: 2018-05-03 19:20:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 2,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5303615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilentRaven97/pseuds/SilentRaven97
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The sort of sequel to codes and communication. You do not need to read it before reading this but some references to the other story will go over your head. More codes to crack for Sherlock and John.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Like in Harry Potter

Lestrade called John, he needed their help and I-prefer-to-text Sherlock was not picking up his phone. ‘Sherlock, we have a case.’ ‘How do you know, why did Lestrade call you?’ Sherlock demanded. ‘If you had answered your phone you would have known.’ John answered calmly, used to Sherlock’s overreactions to things he thinks he should know first.

John went to put his jacket on and by the time he was done Sherlock had somehow also put his coat and scarf on. ‘Come John, the game is on’ he jelled, already thundering down the stairs. John sighed, and followed him out the door.

Lestrade looked up from his report when the door of his office swung into the wall, he saw Sherlock walk in with John one step behind him.   
‘Good, you’re here. This is the note in question, and if you damage my wall or door you are paying for it Sherlock. Hello John.’ Sherlock ignored his comment about damage and accepted the note without comment. At least John was kind enough to inquire about what was already uncovered about the case (two children had been kidnapped by their father and an accomplice and one of them had left a coded note) and smart enough because Sherlock sometimes forgot that when a crime scene was cleaned up he could not look at it anymore.

John walked over to Sherlock when he was done jotting down the useful info he got from Greg.

The note said:  
_Emoh kcab su gnirb esaelp. Ymmom gnillet tuohtiw looprevil ot evael ot dah ew dias osla yeht. Anna eitnua ot gnihtemos od ot gniog era egroeg elcnu dna dad._

Sherlock was still looking at it slightly puzzled, this were not shuffled letters and it was also not written with a mirror, nor with that stupid number trick John had used some time ago. He looked up surprised when John read aloud ‘Dad and Uncle George are going to do something to Auntie Anna. They also said we had to leave to Liverpool without telling mommy. Please bring us back home.’   
‘How?’ was the only reaction he got, though Sherlock and Greg said it at the same time. ‘It is written backwards’ he explained ‘Harry liked writing like that when we were younger.’

‘Donovan, does the suspect’s brother have an address in Liverpool?’ Lestrade yelled through the still open door. ‘Yes he does.’

And the office went empty a few seconds after she gave the address; it was a funny sight to see thought DI Dimmock, all those people rushing out the building.


	2. On the blog

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The code is in the picture.  
> for the people from ffnet this is what it is supposed to look like. To everyone else enjoy

The blog of John Watson

Sherlock I know you’re browsing the blog because you are bored, I hope this will keep you busy, to all the other people reading this: here is a puzzle

**Sherlock Holmes  
** John did you just use a different letter type?

 **John Watson  
** yes

_10 minutes later_

**Sherlock Holmes  
** That was amusing, slightly, the poison is in the ice. I am going to see how my experiment is going.

 **Mike Stamfort  
** It would be nice to know what the message says, even though we know the answer is ice.

 **Anonymous  
** He used Bookshelf symbol 7

 **Anthea  
** I almost have it but some symbols just don’t work and I don’t want to cheat.

 **Molly Hooper  
** Please tell Sherlock I have a day off, he doesn’t seem to get it

 **Mike Stamfort  
** Can you give us the solution mate?

**Harry Watson  
comment deleted**

**John Watson  
** I told him Molly, though I’m not sure if it worked. And Harry don’t be rude this is a public blog.

 **John Watson**  
The solution for everyone who doesn’t have it yet:  
Two girls are drinking iced tea (with cubes) in a restaurant. One drinks three glasses at high speed while the other slowly drinks hers. The second girl dies of poisoning shortly after. They both drank from the same pitcher. Why didn’t the first girl die too?  
Sherlock already gave you the answer.

 **Anthea**  
The punctuation threw me of.

 


	3. Childish arguing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two chapters in one day, enjoy.

The first thing Sherlock heard when he came home was: ‘aybemay ouyay ouldshay otnay rinkday enthay!’ Shouted by John. He was slightly surprised that the answer came in the same weird language from Harriet, no Harry: ‘awesomyay, evenyay ymay rotherbay abandonsay emay!’ After which she stormed down the stairs, almost crashing into him.  
‘John what was that about, and what were you saying?’ was the first thing out of his mouth when he stepped into the living room. ‘We were arguing the way we used to do when we were younger and our parents were not supposed to understand. And hello to you too.’ Was john’s calm reaction. ‘Yes hello, but greetings are unimportant what language were you speaking?’ Sherlock reacted impatiently. ‘It’s called pig Latin Sherlock, it is mostly spoken by kids who think it is a secret language no adult can understand, though it has nothing to do with actual Latin.’ ‘How does it work?’ he demanded. ‘Google it’ was the only answer he got.  
‘Didn’t you and Mycroft do something like this when you were younger? John wondered. ‘Yes we did, but we spoke backwards though Mycroft never became fluent.’ ‘You can speak fluently backwards?’ John asked surprised. ‘Fo esruoc I nac od that Nhoj, I dluow ton yas os esiwrehto.’ John burst out laughing when he heard that, slightly chagrined mood forgotten. Sherlock smiled to himself, mission succeeded. It was a lie of course, but John did not need to know that.


	4. Taxi's and chocolate

John picked up the innocent looking piece of paper from the coffee table. It had a footprint on it from yesterday when Sherlock walked over the table with his shoes still on. Under the footprint words were visible but John had no idea what they meant. It said:  
BP- BS 21  
HP- BS 9  
BGPS-BS 24

‘Sherlock what does this mean?’ he asked the man when he walked into the room. ‘That is for me to know and for you to guess.’ Sherlock answered, still peeved John did not want to buy him cigarettes. ‘I’ll get you cigarettes if you tell me.’ John bargained. ‘Fine’ Sherlock sighed ‘I’ve been timing the cabs. BS is baker street, BP is Buckingham palace, HP is Hyde park and BGPS is Belgravia police station.’ He explained. ‘Now give me the cigarettes.’   
John handed him a box from the groceries and walked to the stairs putting his coat on at the same time. Sherlock eyed the box suspiciously, it did not look new. He opened it and found cigarettes to his surprise. The surprise did not last long. ‘John these are chocolate!!’ he shouted angrily, but the only reaction he got was John’s laughter and the front door slamming closed.


	5. John goes to Harry

John came home with the milk and saw Sherlock sleeping on the couch, not surprising the man had refused to sleep for five days straight. He put the milk in the fridge and went up to his room to pack. Harry had asked him to help her move her collection of boxes to her new apartment. John decided he had enough time left to encrypt his leaving message to Sherlock.   
John wrote the message on the temporary whiteboard on the wall, it’s for a case john and you said I could not put a blackboard on the wall. Sherlock would see it when he woke up and hopefully the flat would still be intact when John returned.

The first thing Sherlock did when he woke up was stretch his legs. The second thing he did was opening his eyes and noticing that John had experimented with the periodic table on the whiteboard. It said: TcVPMoGaSeAlMn Cr NaGe TiSeCrAsTi RuSe VNaMoMoXe RuVCrTc TePPMnPAsSi SiSeAsRu TeMoPAlMn RuVP MnCrRuAlVPAs SeMo RuMoXe AsSeRu RuSe NaRu GaPNaTcRu CrSeVAs.

The spacing suggested it was a message but it was not as simple as H=1=a. Coffee, he needed coffee, and the he would figure it out.  
It made sense that the numbers where the correct way to go, he just did not know how to decrypt the numbers yet. Well, I’ll start with writing down the numbers underneath Sherlock thought.  
This resulted in him having to walk to his room and relocate his poster because he never bothered to memorise all the numbers and their corresponding elements (though he did know all of those, of course). The message now read: 4323154231341325 24 1132 2234243322 4434 2311424254 44232443 52151525153314 1434344 5242151325 442315 25244413231533 3442 444254 333444 4434 1144 3115114344 24342333. And every two numbers represented one letter. ‘Starting with the 24 standing alone, it would most likely be an a or an I. Oooh but of course, smart John smart. It’s a Polybius square.’ Sherlock said, mumbling in the beginning and shouting at the end of his thought process. ‘I already knew he was going to Harry’s, he must have thought I wasn’t listening. And I never wreck the kitchen.’ Sherlock muttered offended. ‘Though the microwave had it coming sometimes, just like the wall. Maybe I should test organic paints on the kitchen wall.’ He mused happily.


	6. Mycroft and mobiles

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note from the previous chapter: Sherlock I am going to Harry this weekend don’t wreck the kitchen or try not to at least John

 

‘Aaargh!’ was the first think John heard Sherlock say since he woke up, considering it was already 4 pm, it was very strange that he was shouting without like this without the normally immediately following cry of “bored”. ‘What is it Sherlock?’ john asked walking into the living room. ‘Mycroft decided he also needed to write in code. He stole our game John.’ Sherlock wined. ‘Is it a difficult one?’ ‘No’ ‘then I’ll read it and you won’t have to deal with it’. The only response john got was a phone thrown at his head.  
Mycroft’s text read: I noticed that you and John used codes to communicate recently so I joined in. I would like an answer in an hour. 444 44 2 888 33 2 555 666 222 55 33 3 777 666 666 6 6 88 777 3 33 777 222 2 7777 33 333 666 777 999 666 88. MH

‘I have a locked room murder case for you.’ John announced five minutes later ‘that was really simple, especially for Mycroft.’ ‘Tell him no John, the fact that he wastes his time encrypting his message means he is just annoying me. He has already solved it himself, he just doesn’t want to do the legwork required to get physical evidence for his conclusions.’ Throwing the phone back to Sherlock he says ‘Do it yourself.’ Sherlock’s only reaction is a sigh, now he has to text to Mycroft himself, eew.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special thanks to NovaNara and Arty Diane For their continued support, without them this sequel would not exist. And thanks to Scoutbokmal for new coding ideas.
> 
> ps. I would like a beta job, if anyone is interested (here or on ff.net) let me know.


	7. Swedish robbers and Lestrade

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have never written from Lestrade's POV before, so I hope I did it right.  
> Thanks to Scoutbokmal for this idea.

 

Greg Lestrade walked into his office at nine, expecting a calm day filled with paperwork. But when he sat down at his desk he found a smiley on his computer screen made out of post-it notes. The left eye said _How was Sweden? John_ in Sherlock’s handwriting. The right eye read _I amom bobororedod, gogetot mome a cocasose ifof cocononvovenonienontot._ The post-it notes that made the mouth read _if not do it anyway.  
_ Lestrade sighed and texted john, inviting him for drinks to catch up and talk about his holiday. He threw away the post-it notes after that, ignoring Sherlock’s encrypted message. Sherlock was welcome to come in and do paperwork, knowing Sherlock that was never going to happen. Greg decided he was not going to text Sherlock in reaction to his notes; Holmes could go bother someone else today. He opened the report he needed to finish, and got promptly interrupted by his phone; dead body in the London eye. So much for catching up with paperwork.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Decoded: I am bored get me a case if convenient. The code comes from Swedish robbers.)


	8. A Bee

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: The picture is tilted sideways and I don't know how to fix it.

John came home from work, 221B was empty; Sherlock had gone to the yard to fill in paperwork. He walked into the kitchen hoping the table had not collapsed under the weight of Sherlock’s last experiment. But the table was bare, with the exception of an empty honey jar with a note taped to it. John took a closer look at the jar. There was a bee caught in it.  
John looked at the note and instantly recognised the code from Sherlock’s website, he also realized that Sherlock had written it on the backside of the post it that he had used to write the decryption on.

John laughed: Do not free the bee. It said. He had no clue what was so special about the bee, so he texted Sherlock knowing he would welcome the break from the paperwork.

JW: Why shouldn’t I free the bee?

SH: It’s a drone, I wish to study it before and after it dies.

JW: You can’t just leave it in the jar until it dies.

SH: The bee is a he John not an it, and since he left the hive he will die in a few days even iff you free him.

JW: Alright I won’t free him, but when you get back you will explain why he would die even if I let him out of the jar. Now go back to the paperwork before Lestrade texts me to complain about you texting me.

SH: Must I?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> trust me about the bees, I’m a biology student with a bee fascination.


	9. Not the books again

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry, I finished this some time ago and forgot to post it. Enjoy.

When John cleaned the coffee table on Saturday morning he found a note from Sherlock that looked exactly like those of their cipher game. It read 68-1 59-25 64-17 56-11 98-3 68-31 9-10. It reminded John of the book cipher from the Black Lotus, in this case it had to be a book from around a 100 pages.   
Just in case Sherlock was being sneaky, thinking John would overlook this option, he started with the London A-Z. The result was rubbish.  
Several hours and books later Sherlock came home from Bart’s, before he could remove his coat John yelled: “Which book did you use I’ve been stuck on it since this morning!”   
Sherlock raised an unimpressed eyebrow and calmly replied. “Those are the doodles I made calculating the results of my last experiment.” John didn’t know if he wanted to shout about the time he wasted or laugh about Sherlock using the word doodles. In the end he settled for sighing and claiming that he was never playing this bloody game again as long as Sherlock kept making cryptic notes of his experiments. Sherlock just pouted at his back, when he walked away to make tea, disappointed that the game was over.

**The end.**


End file.
